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 Claire Chretien / LifeSiteNews

March 8, 2017 (LifeSiteNews) – What does it mean to be a woman?

Planned Parenthood and the modern-day feminist movement are profoundly confused about this.

Today is International Women’s Day. Planned Parenthood and its allies would have people believe that one of the greatest ways women can overcome gender “equality” is by expanding abortion and contraception.

They would have young girls believe that cancer-causing contraception is essential to their “healthcare” and that the right to dismember a tiny human being is a “fundamental right.”

But amidst their clamoring for these anti-human “rights,” modern feminism is struggling with some very basic questions.

Do all women have certain body parts? A few old guard feminists say yes; most modern ones say no, some women have penises and some men have vaginas. (That men can have abortions and that “not all women have uteruses” is a common rallying cry for leftists these days.)

Do men who attempt to “become” women still have male privilege? Do women who attempt to “become” men gain male privilege?

Are “trans women” (those who go from male to female) just as female as women? If so, why the qualifier? Why even call them trans?

How many genders are there? Do feminism and transgenderism promote a “binary” notion of gender?

Should female genital mutilation be opposed, or should it be respected and even funded by Planned Parenthood to avoid offending cultures that practice it?

Are women who oppose abortion welcome to identify as feminists and participate in feminist events like the anti-Trump Women’s March?

Modern feminism has strayed far from its foremothers like Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, who strongly opposed abortion. It’s turned into a divisive, collapsing movement that can’t seem to agree on its most basic tenets.

There’s a better way: embracing the beauty and magnificence of womanhood and all the unique gifts that come with it.

As Alice von Hildebrand said, “The amazing thing is that feminism, instead of making women more profoundly aware of the beauty and dignity of their role as wives as mothers, and of the spiritual power that they can exercise over their husbands, convinced them that they, too, had to adopt a secularist mentality” and try to be exactly like men.

Women can do a lot of things that men can’t. Most importantly, we can carry a whole, distinct, living human being inside our bodies for nine months – and then our bodies can continue to nourish and keep that human alive after he or she is born.

Catholic theology provides women with the perfect champion: the Blessed Virgin Mary. The Church doesn’t expect virgin births of women, nor does it expect women to be sinless like Mary was.  

Rather, it gives us the Mother of God to be our advocate in a very special way. She is our mother. She loves us. She brings us peace and healing and the grace to function in a world that is so hostile to authentic femininity and real women’s empowerment.

“From Mary, we learn to trust even when all hope seems gone,” Pope St. John Paul II said. “From Mary, we learn to love Christ, her Son and the Son of God.”

Mary is the ultimate empowered woman and the woman who has singlehandedly changed the course of human history more than any other.

Today, modern feminists around the country will participate in “A Day Without A Woman,” during which they are on strike from their jobs.

If there truly were a “Day Without A Woman,” the worst part of it would be a day without Mary. 

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As a journalist and editor for LifeSiteNews, Claire Chretien has written more than 1,500 articles about abortion, human dignity, bioethics, the Catholic Church, politics, and related topics. Claire holds a bachelor’s degree from The University of Alabama. It was there that she first became involved in pro-life activism.